IAB Australia on May 6, 2026, published the March 2026 edition of the Ipsos iris Digital Landscape Report, a large-scale survey of 22.66 million Australians aged 14 and over who accessed the internet in the previous month. The report maps device ownership, internet access frequency, and online media consumption across age groups, gender, and geography. Produced by Ipsos as Australia's preferred digital currency provider, the findings carry significance for any marketer or advertiser planning campaigns in the Australian market.

The data comes from the Ipsos iris Establishment Survey conducted in March 2026, drawing on 12,000 respondents aged 14 and above. According to the report, the survey combines a phone-based method via CATI with an online component via Ipsos Interactive Services. It also incorporates questions common to the OzTAM Establishment Survey, enabling connected TV data integration.

Near-universal connectivity

The headline figure is stark. According to the report, 96% of Australians aged 14 and over were online the day before being surveyed. Almost none had never used the internet at all - only about 0.1% of the 14-plus population reported having never been online. That figure, combined with the total online population of 22.66 million, defines a nearly saturated addressable digital audience for advertisers in Australia.

Frequency of access is equally high. Some 88% of those surveyed said they go online more than once or twice a day. Breaking this down by age group, 93% of both the 14-24 and 25-44 cohorts reported going online multiple times a day, as did 92% of those aged 45-54. The figure drops to 80% among those aged 55 and above, though that cohort still represents a large and highly connected segment. For marketers assessing reach and frequency across digital channels, these numbers suggest that daily multiple-touchpoint planning assumptions are well founded for most adult demographics in Australia.

Smartphone dominance, with sharp demographic splits

Smartphones are close to universal in Australia. According to the report, 98% of Australians aged 14 and over personally use a smartphone, and households contain an average of 2.75 smartphones. There are 25.1 million smartphones used personally across the country, while Australian households collectively hold 22.1 million. The average number of smartphones per person sits at 1.11, and an additional 0.38 devices per person are owned by employers or educational institutions among those who are employed or studying.

The operating system split is nearly even nationally - 50% Android against 49% Apple - but the demographic breakdown tells a more complex story. According to the report, 73% of Australians aged 18 to 24 use Apple iPhones, while 60% of those aged 55 and over primarily use Android smartphones. Gender adds another dimension: 55% of females identify as Apple iPhone users, while 52% of regional residents use Android devices. The Northern Territory records the highest average household smartphone count at 2.95 devices.

This demographic stratification in operating system choice has direct implications for mobile advertising. iOS and Android audiences in Australia are not interchangeable from a demographic standpoint. Younger urban audiences skew heavily iOS, while older and regional audiences tilt toward Android. Targeting strategies, creative formats, and attribution approaches that treat mobile as a uniform surface risk missing these distinctions.

Device recency data in the report shows that 80% of Apple iPhone owners used their device yesterday, compared with 77% for Android phone owners. A much smaller share of "other smartphone" users - 43% - used their device yesterday, suggesting that non-mainstream handsets carry significantly lower daily engagement rates.

Tablets and computers: household staples

Tablets sit at 47% personal use penetration among Australians 14 and over, with 12.1 million tablets used personally and 9.6 million present in households. The average household holds 1.19 tablets, and each person averages 0.71 tablets. Apple dominates the tablet market: 62% of tablets run Apple operating systems against 36% Android. Gender plays a role here too - 66% of females use Apple iPads as their primary tablet, compared with 32% who use Android tablets. Android tablet users are somewhat more concentrated in regional areas at 39% ownership against 35% in metropolitan zones.

Computers maintain broad reach at 81% personal use penetration. Australian households contain 23.5 million personally used computers and 16.9 million household computers. The average household holds 2.10 computers, and each person averages 1.13 computers. Windows continues to dominate the operating system landscape at 74% share, with Apple Mac at 18% and other systems at 8%. According to the report, 84% of Australians aged 65 and older who are online use a Windows PC, while only 9% of that age group use Apple Mac. In contrast, among 18-24-year-olds, 57% use a Windows PC - a notably lower share, reflecting greater diversity of device use in younger cohorts. Some 39% of those in paid employment use a computer at their workplace or educational setting outside the home.

Smart TVs: the living room advertising surface

Smart TV ownership is widespread. According to the report, 72% of online Australians have at least one smart TV in their household. The average household holds 1.08 smart TVs, with 46% of online households having exactly one. Among all households with a television set, 71% have a smart TV directly connected to the internet, 26% have a TV that connects via a streaming device such as Chromecast, and 25% retain a traditional television with no internet access.

For the marketing community, the smart TV penetration figures matter enormously. The $18.4 billion Australian internet advertising market recorded in 2025 includes a rapidly growing video component, and understanding the device landscape that video advertising lands on is foundational to planning. With 72% smart TV penetration among online households, the connected TV surface in Australia is now a mainstream channel, not a specialist one.

Beyond smart TVs, the report records other device ownership: gaming consoles lead at 37% of households, followed by streaming devices such as Chromecast, Firestick, and Apple TV at 36%. Smart watches are present in 32% of households, smart home devices such as Google Home and Amazon Echo in 27%, internet-connected set-top boxes or DVRs in 22%, fitness trackers in 18%, and e-readers in 15%. Only 22% of households do not own any of these supplementary devices. Combined smart device ownership - smart watches plus smart home devices - reaches 45% of households. Among males specifically, 41% have a gaming console in their household.

Streaming devices: the screen hierarchy

The report maps which devices Australians used for different streaming categories in the seven days prior to the survey. The findings reveal a clear hierarchy where content type largely determines screen choice.

For free online TV, smart TVs dominate at 70%, with smartphones at 23% and computers at 20%. For subscription streaming services, the split is equally weighted between smartphones and smart TVs - each drawing 70% and 36% of users respectively for smartphone and smart TV - though the smart TV figure edges ahead at 70% penetration for this category as well. Audio content is smartphone territory: 80% of those who consumed audio online in the past seven days did so via smartphone, with computers at 25%. Social media video is the most smartphone-centric category of all, with 83% consuming it via smartphone, and only 29% using a computer. Tablets and gaming consoles serve as secondary surfaces across most categories.

These device-per-content findings are directly relevant to the advertiser community. Nielsen's launch of Connected TV intelligence for the Australian market in August 2025 was partly motivated by exactly this fragmentation - the need to understand competitor spend allocation across a landscape where the same consumer might watch paid streaming on a smart TV and social video on a smartphone within the same hour.

Video consumption: 21.1 hours per week on average

The report's media behaviour data quantifies claimed viewing time across three streaming formats. According to the report, Australians aged 14 and over claim to spend an average of 21.1 hours per week watching free online TV, subscription TV, or social media video in aggregate. Among all age groups, those aged 45-64 watch the most, averaging 21.9 hours per week. That the heaviest viewers are in the middle-age band rather than among younger consumers is a finding that cuts against some common assumptions about digital video consumption.

Breaking the data down by format and age group reveals further nuance. Among free online TV watchers, those aged 65 and over average the most time at 13 hours per week, while 14-24 year olds spend only 5 hours weekly on this format. Subscription TV follows a similar older-skewing pattern, with both 45-64 and 65-plus groups averaging 14 hours weekly against 7 hours for 14-24 year olds. Social media video, however, is the one format where younger audiences have not held a meaningful lead over those in the 25-44 cohort: both the 14-24 and 25-44 groups spend 11 hours per week, compared with 8 hours for 45-64 year olds and 7 hours for those aged 65 and above. According to the report, social media video is no longer exclusively a young person's format.

Online media consumption: what Australians watched in the past seven days

Looking at the past seven days, the report records that 85% of online Australians aged 14 and over watched any video online. Watching video on social media was the single most common activity at 65%, ahead of watching a paid streaming service at 61% and watching free live TV at 58%. Listening to live radio was reported by 43%, and watching free online TV by 42%. Paid music streaming reached 37%, free music streaming or the unpaid version 33%, and podcast listening 21%. Watching Foxtel or Fetch TV was recorded by 16%, and listening to online radio by 14%. In total, 66% of online Australians listened to any audio online in the past seven days.

Australia's digital audio advertising market recorded $339 million in 2025, with podcast advertising growing 13.5% year on year, a trajectory that the 21% podcast listening reach figure in this survey helps contextualise. The audience is present and growing; the measurement infrastructure is still catching up.

Age-based media consumption shows sharp divergences. According to the report, those under 44 are more likely to consume social media videos, while those aged 45 and above are more likely to have watched free live TV such as free-to-air. Among the oldest cohort - those aged 65 and over - free live TV reaches 84% in the past seven days. Among 14-24 year olds, that figure falls to 30%. Paid streaming service use is relatively stable across age groups: 63% among 14-24 year olds, 70% among 25-44, 62% among 45-64, and 45% among those 65 and above. The age-graded video consumption landscape creates a planning challenge for advertisers seeking broad reach - no single video format delivers equivalent coverage across all adult demographics.

What the data means for media planning

The Ipsos iris report provides the statistical foundation for the Ipsos iris online audience measurement system, which IAB Australia endorses as the currency for digital media trading in Australia. According to the report, the survey is designed to create a digital universe from which to project online audiences and to provide panel recruitment targets covering demographics and device type ownership and usage. Results are weighted to represent Australians aged 14 and over who accessed the internet in the past month.

The demographic profile of the online population is broadly representative of the wider adult population. The survey records 49% male and 51% female respondents, with the age distribution spread across all cohorts from 14-24 at 16% through to 65-plus at 20%. Geographically, 64% of online Australians live in metropolitan areas across the five capital cities, while 36% are regional or remote. Some 87% are grocery buyers, 53% are in paid employment, and 27% have tertiary education.

For the marketing community, the implications extend across several planning dimensions. The near-universal smartphone penetration - 98% personal use - makes mobile a baseline assumption for any digital campaign in Australia. But the OS demographic split argues against treating mobile as a single audience. Similarly, 72% smart TV penetration shifts connected TV advertising from an experimental line item to a mainstream planning consideration, and the devices-by-content data gives planners a clearer picture of which screen to weight for which format.

The average device count of 2.67 personally used devices per person - excluding smart TVs - indicates that cross-device measurement and frequency management are central rather than peripheral concerns. Nielsen's cross-device deduplication capabilities for YouTube CTV in Australia, launched in 2024, addressed exactly this gap: the risk of overcounting reach when the same person views an ad on a smartphone and a smart TV within a single campaign window. The Ipsos iris data gives that problem a precise scale.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Ipsos, in collaboration with IAB Australia, produced the report. The survey covered 12,000 Australians aged 14 and over, representing an online population of 22.66 million.

What: The March 2026 Digital Landscape Report documents device ownership and usage across smartphones, tablets, computers, and smart TVs in Australian households, alongside online media consumption behaviour including streaming time by format and by age group. Key findings include 98% smartphone personal use penetration, 72% smart TV household penetration, and an average of 21.1 hours per week spent watching online video.

When: The Ipsos iris Establishment Survey was conducted in March 2026. IAB Australia published the report on May 6, 2026.

Where: The survey covers Australia nationally, with data segmented by metropolitan and regional location, state, age, gender, employment status, and ethnicity. The Northern Territory records the highest household smartphone count at 2.95 devices on average.

Why: The Ipsos iris Establishment Survey serves as the statistical foundation for IAB Australia's endorsed online audience measurement currency, Ipsos iris. It creates the digital universe from which online audiences are projected, and provides panel recruitment targets for demographic and device coverage. For the advertising industry, the data informs planning, audience segmentation, and device-level channel allocation decisions across Australia's $18.4 billion digital advertising market.

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